"Well, that Euan kid looked alright," Ron started. Alicia, however, did not take to his line of thinking.
                              
"Yeah, alright, but not as good as Seamus did. Why not pick him? He just needs little training, and he'll be good," she said. The others agreed and Ron looked at Harry, who nodded.
                              
"Alright... Sean, you can tell Euan he can be a reserve. Practice is on Sunday morning. Let's go in," Ron surrendered. Wood and Angelina always put Quidditch above everything else. Ron knew he had to do it, too. They all headed up to the castle. 
                              
"So, didn't see any other Beaters?" he asked Harry, who said no. 
                              
They were stuck with Sloper. Hermione came down. She had been watching from the stands with some of the other Gryffindors, including the Creevy brothers.
                              
"So, how'd it go?" she asked.
                              
"We picked that kid, Sean, as a Beater. He's pretty good, but we didn't find anyone else to be another Beater, and Seamus is the new Chaser," he finished, exhaustedly.
                              
"Well, at least Seamus believes Harry, now," Hermione said.
                              
"Yeah," Ron grumbled.
                              
"Was he any good?" Hermione asked.
                              
"Yeah, pretty good," he admitted, as though wishing it were not true. 
                              
Hermione spotted Ron's lack of enthusiasm and did not mention it again. They talked about Gryffindors' chances of winning all the way up to the common room. Ron and Harry went quietly up to their room, and found Seamus and Dean there. Seamus looked up anxiously. 
                              
"You're on the team, if you still want to be," Ron said.
                              
"Sounds good to me," Seamus said, grinning wildly.
                              
"First practice is on Sunday morning," Ron said, turning to his put his Quidditch robes away.
                              
"No problem," Seamus said, happily, though a brief silence followed.
                              
"What kind of broom you got?" Harry asked Seamus to ease awkwardness.
                              
"A Nimbus Two-Thousand and One! Me mum can't really afford a Firebolt," he said smiling at Harry. Harry could tell he was to get on his good side.
                              
"Well, we need to get our homework done and Hermione's waited for us," Ron said and they walked downstairs, giving one last look at Seamus. 
                              
On Sunday, they practiced and it went well. Harry was glad to finally play Quidditch again. Ron was directing and was still the Keeper, too. Ginny, Katie, and Seamus were learning each other's moves and techniques. Sean and Jack Sloper were doing the same. The longer they practiced, the better they got. Ron stopped in the middle of practice and showed them some different scoring and defending strategies that he was working on. They seemed simple, yet effective, and by the end of practice, they had gotten all of them down. 
                              
When they met up with Hermione afterward, Ron was still glowing. The furor from the practice was still in him. Hermione was glad to see him happy and she sat next to him at lunch. Ron's nervousness over becoming the captain had diminished and Harry felt he had done something right in letting Ron have the Captaincy. It was a great practice. 
                              
Ron had not mentioned what had happened in McGonagall's office, yet, and Harry was not about to bring it up. The next few practices went just as well. Ginny, Katie and Seamus were moving like a unit, and Sean Williams and Jack Sloper were not as good as Fred and George, but were better than before. Perhaps the Cup would remain in Professor McGonagall's study for another year.
                              
* * * * *
                              
The number of times he dreamt of Voldemort and Sirius had diminished, but occasionally still stung him like clockwork. When school started, it was a change in his schedule. He had a lot more moving around and studying. He became tired easier and slept longer than when he was at home. He still woke up before everyone else, and had problems falling asleep, but it became worse and worse as time went by. His body seemed to have gotten use to the extra exercise. His eye and another bruises healed up, and his leg was getting better, though it still hurt. 
                              
He had started to wake up in the dead of the night, again. He was not sure if Ron knew how much sleep he was getting. A few times, he could have sworn that Ron heard him, but he never said anything. Harry tried to figure out if he stopped talking in his slept, but there was no way he could know, and Ron never said anything about that either.
                              
Snape and McGonagall were working as one to force them to use their minds to do spell work. After the first few lessons, the students started to understand how to work this complex type of magic and were catching up to Harry, who was now doing worse. The less sleep and more dreams he had, the harder it was for him to work the spells. The work had become redundant and boring. Class work seemed meaningless. All he had to do was learn Avada Kedavra, right? His mood greatly affected his behavior. Most of the time, he was quiet and avoided conversation.
                              
Snape stopped ignoring Harry, now that he was doing worse. However, every time Snape belittled him, he rose to the occasion and performed his task without difficulty. His hatred fueled him enough to try. 
                              
Ron and Hermione said nothing about his behavior and had not mentioned Sirius, yet. It did not sound remotely interesting to talk about. He also noticed that either one of them were with him all the time. He was starting to get sick of it. He wanted to be alone. The only time that he was alone was when he woke up early. He never left his bed until Ron got up, and in those early morning hours, he just stared at the ceiling. There was nothing else he could do. Days had started to become routine. He only went around with Ron and Hermione to avoid a confrontation. 
                              
Classes grew worse and worse. Potions was the most difficult. Snape had more reason to criticize him. Potions were not as easy as working spells. So, Harry could not use his anger to work it out. Charms had moved into Muggle Repelling Charms. They were complex to work and required tricky wand movements. Care of Magical Creatures was becoming difficult as well. They naively thought that Blast-Ended Skewts was the worst Hagrid could find. He brought in more dangerous creatures for them to discover how many different ways the 'interesting' creatures could hurt them. 
                              
Hermione had gotten a nasty bite from a graffar beast and had to be in the hospital wing for the weekend, and the dread of the upcoming study of dragons was enough to make them all nervous. Even so, the classes were bearable, even Potions. Harry tuned out everything. Most of the time, he was not even listening, which of course, affected his grades, but the eventual would happen. Ron and Hermione were going to ask him to talk eventually.